The subject invention pertains to metal bearings, and more particularly to bearings employing tungsten carbide surfaces.
In the prior art, bearing surfaces employing tungsten carbide have been manufactured by molding tungsten carbide buttons to a steel radial bearing sleeve utilizing a fine tungsten carbide powder and copper base infiltrant. The buttons are affixed to the surface of the carbon mold in a predetermined pattern which, depending upon size, may utilize as many as 299 buttons. Once molded into place, the buttons and surrounding matrix must be machined finished.
The process of setting the buttons is relatively labor intensive. In addition, the tungsten carbide buttons are more expensive than tungsten carbide chip material. Therefore, it has appeared to the inventors that an improved and less expensive bearing surface might be constructed from available tungsten carbide chip material.